


[untitled]

by Vehemently



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vehemently/pseuds/Vehemently





	[untitled]

Rodney awoke to the sound of Sheppard whimpering. It was his usual noise, a low tense vocalization that he repeated often during his dream cycle. Rodney did the usual thing and nudged him in the back, expecting him to roll over and transition into a deeper stage of sleep. But this time Sheppard snapped awake suddenly, his body tense. It was shocking, that he should wake up like this, when he never had in the past. Guilty, Rodney listened to him blink and breathe, waiting for it to pass or for Sheppard to say something. Sheppard said nothing.

They had slept back to back more nights than either could count: in tents, in huts and shacks and hayricks and under the open sky. They had grown used to each other's space and movements, but had never discussed them. It seemed like the sort of thing that didn't need to be discussed, like whether you switch hands with a fork while eating. (Sheppard did; Rodney didn't.) Rodney did not know what to say.

"Colonel, are you awake?" he asked, feeling vaguely like this was a third-grade sleepover. (He'd only ever had one, and it was in the third grade, and he didn't know whether it was like that at other ages.)

"You poked me," said Sheppard. His voice was fully awake, a little accusatory, but a little up-pitch as if he were trying to make a joke out of it.

"I do that all the time when you're dreaming," said Rodney. "It makes you stop making noise."

Sheppard considered this. "I make noise when I'm dreaming?"

"You always do," Rodney said carefully. It had frightened him, that first time, sleeping next to a man who was practically still a stranger, waking to hear something like a moan out of him. Rodney had sat bolt upright in the dark, a real, thorough darkness you didn't get in cities and towns, and steeled himself for running away in his underwear. And then he'd heard it a second time, and realized Sheppard hadn't moved, and had reached out with one hand to feel his eyeballs moving under their lids, seeing invisible things. "You always have, as long as I've known you."

"What do I say?" asked Sheppard.

Rodney could not think of a manly synonym for 'whimper.' "It's not words. You sound really -- worried. Like it's something important."

They lay back to back while Sheppard digested this new information. "You know you snore, right?"

"Yeah," said Rodney.

"You know I elbow you to make you roll over?"

"Yeah," said Rodney.

"Okay." Sheppard settled himself, as if satisfied.

"What do you dream about?" asked Rodney.

Sheppard breathed in and out, shallow. He was already falling back into sleep. "I don't remember my dreams," he said.

Rodney lay awake for several minutes, listening to Sheppard's even breathing, and wondered whether that was a lie.


End file.
